Fear turns me into a jerky zombie
If you know me at all, you know I’m not shy about crying. I’m effortlessly in touch when I feel sad, elated or deeply moved, and the tears flow without shame.
Similarly, when I’m pissed about something, the fricatives fly! I can easily recognize the heat and tension of anger, and discharge it through shaking, taking a few deep breaths or going for a walk.
Even anxiety about a public speech or a high stakes meeting is something that I can usually handle with self-empathy and regulation techniques like soothing touch.
But fear is a tricky one for me. Fear has a way of operating under my radar and negatively influencing my behavior.
I’m not talking about the kind of fear that comes with, say, riding a motorcycle around a foreign country by myself. I know how to ground myself, dig deep and go for it (within reason) when it comes to that kind of fear.
The fear that gets weird for me is when it hits closer to my heart.
Maybe I’m anticipating a difficult session with a client that I’m not sure will go well. Or there’s something “off” between me and a loved one. Or I think I’m going to miss a deadline for an important project.
In those kind of situations, my core fear that I won’t be liked or that I’ll lose someone or something dear to me comes up. This kind of fear is usually as powerful as it is irrational.
And it’s this kind of fear that comes in like fog in my head and keeps me disconnected from myself.
When it’s there, I’m usually mildly aware that my chest is rigid, like I’m guarding myself from something, but I totally miss this sensation as a cue that I’m scared.
I can operate like this, sometimes even for days, without picking up the scent of my own fear. What eventually happens is that I slowly but steadily feel more and more shut down, numb and cut off.
But that shutdown doesn’t stop me from also being short-tempered and snapping at small things.
Which is what I mean when I say fear turns me into a jerky zombie. Because it’s only when I get to this point of wanting to binge Netflix and/or tell someone off that I think to myself, “Good lord, what is going on with me??”
And then—and only then—does it hit me. “Ohhhhhh! I’m scaaaaaared about something!”
Thankfully I have dear friends and a resilient husband who know this pattern in me and can sometimes interrupt my jerky zombie state to ever so gently ask me, “Hey, are you scared about something?”
And I’ve experienced the pattern enough times now that I can sometimes catch it in myself sooner than the point of imploding into a jerky zombie.
I share this with you because I help people feel their feelings for a living, and I still miss the sneaky way fear sets in to my body and mind.
Which is why it’s SO important to have a practice of looking to the sensations you feel in your body, and naming the emotion that those sensations represent to you.
Because if you’re unaware of trying to avoid a difficult feeling, it will negatively influence your behavior. And the people around you deserve better than that.
Or if you can’t identify the truly pleasant feelings like joy and contentment, they’ll pass you right by without you ever really experiencing them. And you deserve better than that.
You could try it right now: What are the most prominent sensations you feel in your body? And what do those sensations tell you about the emotion you feel in this moment?
A soft jaw and chest with calm energy might feel like contentment.
A heavy heart and collapsed shoulders might feel like disappointment.
Just being able to name how you feel to yourself can help ease the intensity of the feeling. (It’s the phenomenon that Dan Siegel refers to as “name it to tame it.”)
Knowing what you feel also gives you the opportunity to consciously attend to the feeling—like savoring the contentment or taking action to mitigate your disappointment.
If you get good at this, it means you get to stretch out into the whole spectrum of your own experience. Which means you get to get to experience your own life more authentically.
It also means that you’re more likely to figure out if you, too, have a tricky feeling that tuns you into your own version of a jerky zombie so that you can keep an eye out for when it sneaks up on you. ;)
If you want more help with how to be in touch with—and manage—your emotions, check out my online course Managing Your Emotions at Work.